Taylor Swift: Audience and Industries blog tasks

Audience

Background and audience wider reading

Read this Guardian feature on stan accounts and fandom. Answer the following questions:

1) What examples of fandom and celebrities are provided in the article?

• Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters, Beyoncé’s Bey Hive, Taylor Swift’s Swifties, and Nicki Minaj’s Barbs.

2) Why did Taylor Swift run into trouble with her fanbase? 

• When the presale for Taylor Swift’s tour turned into a battle royale for fans locked out of Ticketmaster’s system, frazzled Swifties voiced their disappointment. Ticketmaster and Swift quickly apologized, with the singer calling the process “excruciating”.

3) Do stan accounts reflect Clay Shirky's ideas regarding the 'end of audience'? How? 

• I believe that stan accounts do reflect Clay Shirky's ideas regarding the end of an audience as in the past the only people able to report on celebrities actions and spread awareness about them was the mainstream media however due to the advent of social media consumers are now able to create content about their favourite celebrities such as reacting to their outfits at events or recent works they have released etc.

Read this Conversation feature on the economics of Taylor Swift fandom. Answer the following questions: 

1) What do Taylor Swift fans spend their money on? 

• Taylor Swift fans are known for spending significant amounts of money on albums, merchandise and concert tickets.

2) How does Swift build the connection with her fans? Give examples from the article.

• By handpicking fans for “secret sessions” before album releases (often held in her own home) and hosting post-show meet and greets, over the past 16 years she has carefully built the illusion of these relationships as reciprocated friendship.

3) What have Swifties done to try and get Taylor Swift's attention online? 

• The Taylor Nation twitter account retweets and engages with fans who have shared screenshots of merchandise receipts (from increasingly frequent, themed merchandise releases), pictures of themselves with multiple copies of albums, or particularly over-the-top displays of emotion and creativity.

4) Why is fandom described as a 'hierarchy'? 

• they are hierarchical structures in which fans have their status elevated by participating in certain ways.
• Within the fandom, fans who travel to shows, attend multiple nights, or have seats near the stage are labelled “dedicated” and “committed”. Those who miss out on tickets often express their frustration at missing out to others who they don’t deem to be “real” fans.

5) What does the article suggest is Swift's 'business model'? 

• Swift’s business model is largely built on fan desire to meet her. How do you meet her? You prove you are the biggest fan – and you’ve made the sacrifices (and spent the money) to show it.

Taylor Swift: audience questions and theories

Work through the following questions to apply media debates and theories to the Taylor Swift CSP. You may want to go back to your previous blogpost or your A3 annotated booklet for examples. 

1) Is Taylor Swift's website and social media constructed to appeal to a particular gender or audience?

• I believe that Taylor Swift's website was constructed mainly to appeal to young to middle aged white woman who are her target demographic however it could be argued that due to the popularity of Taylor Swift it appeals to an even larger audience.

2) What opportunities are there for audience interaction in Taylor Swift's online presence and how controlled are these? 

• There are many opportunities for audience interaction with Taylor Swift on different online platforms such as on twitter/X where she likes and reposts fans tweets which show their dedication to Taylor Swift. I believe that all of these interactions are controlled by Taylor and possibly a media team who are curating her tweets and what she interacts with in order to create a persona online.

3) How does Taylor Swift's online presence reflect Clay Shirky’s ‘End of Audience’ theories? 

• Her online presence reflects the "End of Audience" theory as it shows the audiences ability to interact with her content in more ways then just consuming it, for example fans can create videos in order to show off Taylors songs or performances.

4) What effects might Taylor Swift's online presence have on audiences? Is it designed to influence the audience’s views on social or political issues or is this largely a vehicle to promote Swift's work? 

• Taylor Swift's online presence has a massive affect on her audience as many of them look up to her as a role model and as such they want to follow her beliefs on all topics such as political issues which can be seen with the influx of people registering to vote after Swift posted a link to the voter registration site.

5) Applying Hall’s Reception theory, what might be a preferred and oppositional reading of Taylor Swift's online presence? 

• The preferred reading of Taylor Swift's online presence would be that she is a proud feminist working hard to improve the way that the music industry treats female artists and also the way women are treated in society in general. The oppositional reading of her online presence would be that she does not truly care about these causes and is only championing them in order to make her appear better while in reality she only cares about herself and doesn't want any other woman to become more successful then her.

Industries

How social media companies make money

Read this analysis of how social media companies make money and answer the following questions:

1) How many users do the major social media sites boast?

• As of 2022 Meta (formerly Facebook) had 2.96 billion monthly active users
• Twitter (now X) had 330 million active users in the last count in 2019 
• LinkedIn had about 900 million monthly active users as of 2023

2) What is the main way social media sites make money? 

• Social media companies like Meta (formerly Facebook) and X Corp. (formerly Twitter Inc.), primarily make money through selling advertising.

3) What does ARPU stand for and why is it important for social media companies? 

• Average revenue per user which is important as it shows companies how much money they make per user on their app.

4) Why has Meta spent huge money acquiring other brands like Instagram and WhatsApp? 

• WhatsApp boasts over 2 billion monthly active users, which to Meta management means an even greater stock of susceptible minds to sell as a unit to companies looking to, for instance, move a few more smartphones this quarter. Every acquisition Meta has made since, whether it was $1 billion for Instagram or $19 billion for WhatsApp, was conducted with the same goal in mind.

5) What other methods do social media sites have to generate income e.g. Twitter Blue? 

• Another method to make money through social media is tik tok shop where different items are being sold and tik tok takes a cut of the profits from the purchases that were made through it.

Regulation of social media

Read this BBC News article on a report recommending social media regulation. Answer the following questions:

1) What suggestions does the report make? Pick out three you think are particularly interesting. 

• Social networks should be required to release details of their algorithms and core functions to trusted researchers, in order for the technology to be vetted.
• It also suggests adding "friction" to online sharing, to prevent the rampant spread of disinformation.
• A "statutory building code", which describes mandatory safety and quality requirements for digital platforms.

2) Who is Christopher Wylie? 

• He is a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower

3) What does Wylie say about the debate between media regulation and free speech? 

• In most Western democracies, you do have the freedom of speech. But freedom of speech is not an entitlement to reach. You are free to say what you want, within the confines of hate speech, libel law and so on. But you are not entitled to have your voice artificially amplified by technology. These platforms are not neutral environments. Algorithms make decisions about what people see or do not see. Nothing in this report restricts your ability to say what you want. What we're talking about is the platform's function of artificially amplifying false and manipulative information on a wide scale.

4) What is ‘disinformation’ and do you agree that there are things that are objectively true or false? 

• Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. I agree that there are things that are objectively true or false such as the colour of an orange being orange however that doesn't mean that everything has a true answer as a lot of things can be interpreted differently depending on who is reading it

5) Why does Wylie compare Facebook to an oil company? 

• An oil company would say: "We do not profit from pollution." Pollution is a by-product - and a harmful by-product. Regardless of whether Facebook profits from hate or not, it is a harmful by-product of the current design and there are social harms that come from this business model.

6) What does it suggest a consequence of regulating the big social networks might be? 

• If you have a platform that has the unique selling point of "we will allow you to promote hate speech, we will allow you to deceive and manipulate people", I do not think that business model should be allowed in its current form. Platforms that monetise user engagement have a duty to their users to make at least a minimum effort to prevent clearly identified harms. I think it's ridiculous that there's more safety consideration for creating a toaster in someone's kitchen, than for platforms that have had such a manifest impact on our public health response and democratic institutions.

7) What has Instagram been criticised for?

• This is a product of a platform that is making recommendations to you. These algorithms work by picking up what you engage with and then they show you more and more of that. In the report, we talk about a "cooling-off period". You could require algorithms to have a trigger that results in a cooling-off period for a certain type of content. If it has just spent the past week showing you body-building ads, it could then hold off for the next two weeks. If you want to promote body building, you can. But from the user's perspective, they should not be constantly bombarded with a singular theme.

8) Can we apply any of these criticisms or suggestions to Taylor Swift? For example, should Taylor Swift have to explicitly make clear when she is being paid to promote a company or cause? 

• I believe that everyone no matter how big or small should have to make it clear when they are being paid to promote a company or cause as there are many naïve people who would see what their favourite celebrity/influencer is posting and purchase it even if it is a harmful product because they believe that the celebrity/influencer would not lie to them or promote something that could harm them.

A/A* extension tasks

Read Deconstructing Taylor in Media Magazine MM51 which covers representations, postmodernism and the relationship between Swift and her fans. You can find this in our Media Magazine archive.

Read this Guardian article on teenagers and phone addiction. Do you recognise what it is discussing?

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Read this Guardian article on the Online Harms Bill. What does it suggest regarding regulation of social media companies?

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This Guardian article also explores the mental health implications of social media. Do you think that strict regulation of social media should happen?

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